DAD'S DEATH

INTRODUCTORY NOTE: This is not a philosophy paper, nor done in a model
critical thinking manner. It is quite different from other things I
have given you which I have written. The purpose was different. This
was written a few days after my father died, and I wanted to capture some
of the conflicts and frustrations going on within myself. Nonetheless, I
think this personal reflection points to some of the important philosophical
issues within the euthanasia discussion.

It certainly does what Chris asks: Indicates where I start out on this issue

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DAD'S DEATH

May 18, 1994

I watched my father die. Not the actual moment, I was perhaps 15 minutes
late for his official death, but I watched him die over the nine months
prior to that evening. Dad had been in failing health for some time, and
the official cause of death was a blood cancer. However, he would have
been the first to tell you that the actual cause of his death was the
death of Mom some 9 1/2 months before his death. After his beloved
Louise died he didn't want to live, and constantly told us how much he
wanted to be with her.

From Mom's death, Aug. 1, 1993, Dad began to slip. He was a bit lost,
confused, less interested in life. The day of her wake he asked my
sister-in-law how one washed one's hair. For more than 50 years Lou had
washed his hair, leaning him over the kitchen sink. He didn't know how
to do it, so Lucy, my sister-in-law, leaned him over the sink and washed
it. Their life was a unit in a way that I've never seen before. Thus
there was no surprise, and even as we waked, buried and grieved Mom, we
three sons, Tom, John and I, knew and speculated that Dad wouldn't live
long.

But in that August of Mom's death, Dad didn't look so overwhelmingly
sick. He was sharp of mind, could get around with a small four-pronged
cane, and was capable of living alone and mainly taking care of himself.
But slowly over the months he began to slip.

Dad's blood cancer prohibited his body from producing blood cells which
gave his body force. I never did learn or remember if it was the red or
white cells that weren't forthcoming, that was a detail that didn't much
interest me. But Dad's body was a machine that couldn't produce it's own
energy source, and became much like an automobile which one must
regularly take to the gas station for refueling to keep it going. Dad
went each 3 weeks to the hospital for infusions of blood, two or three
units. After getting his new blood he would usually be a bit disoriented
that evening, but by the next morning he was about returned to normal,
and certainly a bit stronger and more alert than he had been two days before.

But, again, like an automobile, his body wasn't stagnant save for fuel.
It was slowly running down. First he lost his ability to walk outside
with his cane and we took him out in his wheelchair. Then inside the
house he switched to a two wheeled walker. Finally in January, 1994 we
had to hire a person to stay with him 24 hours a day and help him with
everyday things.

He still had the power to bathe himself, take care of his toilet
functions and most of his dressing, perhaps needing help with his shoes
and socks. Gradually he lost some of these facilities too, and by late
March he had lost most of his ability to do these things.

He started wearing adult diapers because he couldn't at all control his
toilet functions; this was a major blow to his pride and sense of
dignity. His mind began to wander more and more and this frustrated him
to no end. He kept inquiring when would this end, when could he be with
Lou, when could he die.

When one hears stories of the dying and death of elderly people, Dad's
story is almost idyllic. He was in his own home, he was not in terrible
pain, his three sons all lived within a few blocks and visited him
everyday, taking him out in his wheelchair for walks around the
neighborhood. His daughters-in-law were attentive and loving, his
grandchildren came often. His live-in caregiver was competent, kind and
attentive. When we walked him in the neighborhood, the neighborhood of
his birth, childhood and whole life, people all knew him, greeted him and
truly loved and cared for him. Few people ever have it this nice.

But I was watching him die by inches, knowing that he didn't want this.
He wanted to be with Lou. We all heard this so often that it became our
phrase for his inevitable death.

Finally one April when I was sitting with him and he was asking me how
long was his death going to take, and couldn't' something be done, I
asked him if he wanted to quit taking his blood transfusions. He lit up
in a way that I hadn't seen in months. "If I do that Dr. Luedke says
I'll die, won't I?" "Yes, Dad, you will." "How long will it take?"

Dr. Luedke, his wonderful, attentive and caring physician had been over
this with him and us. I helped him work it through in his memory. He
would slowly lose energy, and would get very weak. He would probably
have some chest pains and shortness of breadth. But the bottom line was
that he would most likely die within a couple of weeks to two months at
the outside. "This is what I want," he assured me, "this is what I
want." I told my brothers about this and discussed it with Dr. Luedke.
She wasn't surprised at all. Dad had often asked this question before.
Dr. Luedke recommended that if that were his decision then he should
enter a home hospice care that would keep him as comfortable as possible
and especially monitor pain.

There was a good deal of in-house discussion with my brothers and them
with Dad, and Dad even called his parish priest to ask if this was a
morally acceptable thing for him to do. But he remained firm that it was
what he wanted.

Thus he entered home hospice with the Visiting Nurses Association, a
group who tended him those last weeks of his life with concern, kindness
and efficiency .

Dad entered home hospice about one week after he had taken blood, thus
the first two weeks were just his normal cycle, since he was getting
blood about every three weeks. But into the third week we could see him
begin to weaken. And it was at this point that our larger family rallied
strongly for what we knew was his death watch. We three sons visited
everyday unless there was some exceptional reason. His sole surviving
sibling, our Aunt Catherine and her husband, Jack, visited often. The
grandkids came often, and my son, Bob, became a daily regular. We feted
him, took him for walks in his wheelchair until the last two weeks of his
life. And he loved it, relished it, and came to expect it. "Where you
going?" he would inquire when you had to leave, "When you coming back?"

The Visiting Nurses provided morphine and nitroglycerine to control his
pain. Yvon, his live in caregiver, intensified her activities. We
clustered around the house to give support and love. But, we all stood
around and watched him die. He wasn't keen about this process. The very
day that the visiting nurse representative came to the house and
discussed the details of what Dad was asking, and while she sat filling
out some papers at the dining room table, Dad called me over and quietly
asked, "Can't you just give me something to make this happen?" I
explained that this was against the law and that we couldn't do it.

That theme, that question came up many times in the next three weeks. I
guess I was the one, his oldest, the philosophy professor, the one who
talked "issues" with him, the one he could ask such a thing. And I heard
it a dozen times in one form or another. "Can't you give me something to
make this happen." He wanted to be with Lou. He saw no virtue,
necessity nor sense in dying slowly, by inches.

And neither did I nor do I. I watched my father die little by little,
day by day. It pained me intensely, angered me a great deal and
challenged me to the core.

Dad's story is a best-case story of someone who doesn't die a sudden
death. He died at home, surrounded by a nearly ideal support system of
loved ones, in very little pain, tended by competent and kind folks, his
pain controlled by able and attentive people. And it only took a month
or so once he started the process going. Can it get much better?

But this question obscures what he ask of us. "Can't you give me
something to do this NOW." Dad loved us. He appreciated our care and
concern, he appreciated what his physician, caregiver and hospice people
were doing. But he wanted to die NOW. To be with Lou, to end what he
took to be a great indignity of his losing control of his body and mind.
And we didn't respond, except my lame answer -- we can't do that Dad.

Why couldn't I do this? I didn't know how. But I'm a bright enough
fellow that I could find out in a couple of days if no one helped me, and
were services available, like the Visiting Nurses Hospice program is for
care, then a telephone call could have done it.

It's against the law. Yes. But I've violated laws in civil disobedience
in my life-long protesting against various government positions which I
have thought were wrong. This surely didn't bother me in the past.

I could be prosecuted. Perhaps. I don't think I ever thought of that.
Maybe that was there in the back of my mind and deterred me. I just
don't know.

My brothers, the daughters-in-law, Aunt Catherine, the grandchildren
wouldn't approve. I don't know. I never really asked, though I did
discuss my frustrations at not being able to respond to his wish with my
brothers, and they seemed to be in the same receptive state of mind that
I was in.

When I mentioned some of these thoughts to a friend of mine at Dad's
wake, a person who is intimate with the hospice movement, she told me
that often times the death of a love one in hospice is in the interest of
the person's family. That WE needed Dad's slow death. That position is
so horrible to me I can't even comprehend it. Someone we love and
treasure is supposed to lay there INDEFINITELY in great indignity,
wanting and asking to die so that I can handle that death? No thanks. I
asked a lot of my Dad in his life, but his slow death was something I
wouldn't ask or expect of him. My grieving is my problem, not his,
especially since he made clear his wants.

But, life is valuable, we have no right to take it. This view makes no
sense to me at all. My life, on my view, is MINE. No one else has the
right to take it, and all my life I've hated the civilization-sanctioned
concept of war which allowed others to take people's lives against their
will. And while I've supported the notion of laws against killing, I've
never been able to accept the concept of state supported killing in the
death penalty. No, I believe I respect the right of someone over his or
her life. But, I am one who believes that each of us has a right over
his or her own life. If Dad wanted to die, then, for me, he had that
right, and I, as a son, and particularly as the one son, the one person
to whom he appealed in his dying, I failed him in this moment of his need
and desire.

Life, as I see it, it is a fact of QUALITY, not merely BIOLOGY. As a
society we are just really beginning to deal with this issue, and Dr.
Kavorkian is a powerful figure in raising this question regarding cases
like Dad's. He is certainly one of my great heroes, a person putting his
foot into the door of personal control over life.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Dr. Kavorkian, the assisted
suicide movement, touches one tiny aspect. The Hemlock Society has been
around for 30 or so years. It has always advocated the right of people
who were suffering terminal illness to terminate their own lives. Now
they have also expanded their literature into the right of assisted
suicide. But even this is not enough to meet what I see as a
right-to-my-own-life-or-death.

Both these movements, and the case of my Dad's death, are discussions of
the rights of terminally ill people. But what of those who are not
terminally ill in a physical sense, but simply do not want to continue
living? They do not, perhaps, judge the quality of their lives as worth
living. What of them? I find in my heart a great sympathy that goes out
to such people. I would wish they could find meaning and importance in
their lives, I certainly understand the concept of temporary set backs
and the seemingly overpoweringness of them. I know and have read about
depression. But I reject the notion of life as being a "gift from on
high." Life is a fact of nature. I have it because my parents gave it
to me for whatever reason, and, for me, like any other gift, it is now
mine to do with as I will. If I deem it's quality not to be adequate
enough to bother continuing on, then I demand the right to end it.

I know there are hard questions of legality in all these matters. It is
easy to camouflage one's desire to see someone dead, whether the motive
be love, hate, compassion, jealousy, greed, vengeance, self-interest or
some other motive. It might be easy to plead that the other wanted or
chose his or her death. These legal matters are difficult, but not
insurmountable. They would need attention and safeguards. Yes.

But my question is not a legal one, but a moral one. Who has a right
over my life? I believe we are at a time in human history when we must
turn over full rights of ownership of one's life to the person living it.

I watched my father die and I am profoundly saddened. I miss him, I
loved him very very much. He was perhaps the most simple, loving and
sincere man I ever met. He was my dad, and a profound model of how to be
in the world. But I am also saddened at myself and a bit angry with my
society at how we deal with death. I'm saddened with myself in that I
let our societal standards dictate my response to my father's repeated
plea: "Can't you give me something to make this happen NOW?" I'm angry
with my society that forces religious values down the throats of those of
us who don't have them, and crams theological views down the throats of
dissenting religious views.

There is a growing number of us crying out for the freedom to die as we
choose. Certainly my father's death at home, surrounded by his attentive
and loving family, attended by the competent (and extremely economical)
hospice people, is a great improvement over a more sterile hospital
death, of tubes, and machinery, and excessive whiteness, limited visiting
hours, alien neighborhoods and all -- to say nothing of the mind-boggling
cost. But it is not enough. It is only the tiniest beginning.

These are times of a society in social conflict over our notions of
death and dying. Confused, conflicted, anguished. Like others, I'm
caught in it and suffer for it. What keeps running through my mind is:

Beloved Dad, you had the right to die, and it took you longer than you
wanted, and not in the way that you wanted. You asked help from me.
I didn't deliver. I hope you can forgive my lack of courage and/or
conviction. Perhaps, now that you are again "with Lou" you can forgive
me for being me.